from 3quarks daily comes a story from Poland about the law of lustration, something I was not aware of until now. Lustration is a form of purification, in this case anyone affiliated with the communist regime, must confess it. Some risk losing their jobs if they did, all face it if they refuse to fess up.
The commentators trace this law to Catholicism, and it does have a wiff of the inquisition about it. Though the inquisition aquired a negative reputation for obvious reasons, the purpose of the process was to actually find the truth behind whatever case was brought forward. Our is an adversarial system where two sides of an argument compete to influence an impartial group of citizens.
At the heart of the adversarial system lies the notion that freedom includes the ability to not have to incriminate yourself. The inquisitorial system does not. You have to lay out what happened, or you can be held accountable.
My question is this, though we are conditioned to believe that our judicial system is better than those of other countries, do we secretly long for the truth promised by an inquisition? So much of our criticisms of the legal process focus on crafty lawyers, idiotic juries, and dishonest defendants pleading the 5th Amendment that I strongly believe that a majority of Americans could be persuaded to change it all if given the chance. Our commitment to individual rights is rather thin.
Am I off base?
